The Tale of Despereaux (2008)

The tale of three unlikely heroes - a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon, and a bumbling servant girl with cauliflower ears - whose fates are intertwined with that of the castle's princess.

Directors:

Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen

Writers:

Kate DiCamillo (book), Will McRobb (screen story),

Stars:

Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson

1 win & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Matthew Broderick	...	Despereaux (voice)
Dustin Hoffman	...	Roscuro (voice)
Emma Watson	...	Princess Pea (voice)
Tracey Ullman	...	Miggery Sow (voice)
Kevin Kline	...	Andre (voice)
William H. Macy	...	Lester (voice)
Stanley Tucci	...	Boldo (voice)
Ciarán Hinds	...	Botticelli (voice)
Robbie Coltrane	...	Gregory (voice)
Tony Hale	...	Furlough (voice)
Frances Conroy	...	Antoinette (voice)
Frank Langella	...	Mayor (voice)
Richard Jenkins	...	Principal (voice)
Christopher Lloyd	...	Hovis (voice)
Charles Shaughnessy	...	Pietro (voice)

Storyline

The tale of three unlikely heroes - a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon, and a bumbling servant girl with cauliflower ears - whose fates are intertwined with that of the castle's princess.

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Plot Keywords:

book | darkness | princess | dungeon | rat | 

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Taglines:

Small Mouse. Big Dreams.

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Genres:

Adventure | Animation | Comedy | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [es] Universal Studios

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 December 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Despereaux - Un pequeño gran héroe

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

£560,870 (UK) (19 December 2008)

Gross:

$50,818,750 (USA) (27 February 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Larger Than Life Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A number of characters have names that are artistic references. "Roscuro" refers to the "Chiaroscuro Movement", Botticelli is a reference to the artist Sandro Botticelli, painter of "The Birth of Venus", and Boldo is named after Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a famous surrealistic painter who composed faces and figures out of various objects in the way that Boldo himself is made out of fruit, vegetables and kitchen utensils.

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Goofs

When Despereaux is about to be dropped into the rat dungeon, he has red string wrapped around his waist. The camera cuts away to show the dungeon, and when it comes back to see Despereaux, the red string is missing.

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Quotes

Narrator: The story said she was a prisoner but that wasn't totally true because she had hope and whenever you have hope, you're never really anybody's prisoner.

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Connections

References Gulliver's Travels (1939)

User Reviews

Great Film

Got this Movie for Christmas on DVD and Matthew Broderick did a good job doing the voice of the "Gentlemouse" this movie reminds me of "The Great Mouse Detective", "The Rescuers/Rescuers Down Under", "Ratouille" and "Stuart Little" and I did enjoy watching this mouse-like hero who saves the day in the Medieval times. I like it when he speaks to the Human beings. But they got scared little bit. See Humans can speak to mice and rats. At the end there is forgiveness to be solved. This movie filled with animation effects with Fantasy Stories were ever told in Fairy Tales. I did enjoy watching this movie during Christmas. Filled with Family-Fantasy films to watch on the Big Screen from Dreamworks Animation.